Here's what I've been doing since I went AWOL.

Sorry about two church posts in a row, but I thought I'd show you what I've been working on for the past two weeks.

Our first Primary activity for the year was on Saturday.

One Saturday night about a month ago, I was supposed to be planning my Sharing Time for Sunday (yes, I procrastinate). I could not come up with any ideas that I liked but for some reason ideas for our quarterly activities were jumping in to my head with a sense of urgency. I outlined all four quarterly activities, and not until I was drifting to sleep that night did I finally get an idea for the next morning's sharing time.

Anyhow, here is how the first quarterly activity played out. Our new song this year is called I Know that my Savior Loves Me and the chorus says (it should be playing in the background if you have your sound on)

I know He lives
I will follow faithfully
My heart I give to Him
I know that my Savior loves me

We started by singing the song and then broke the chorus in to four activities.

Part One: I know He lives
We decorated the bulletin board with ways we know Jesus lives. This is how it looked on Saturday, but on Sunday it was much cuter when Andra decorated that white strip along the bottom with the pictures and baptismal dates for the kids getting baptized this year.

Part Two: I will follow faithfully (we did this part 4th...you'll see why later)

Part Three: My Heart I give to Him
We decided that this part would be best illustrated by an act of love, or service. We made 3 blankets to donate to the women's and children's shelter. The older kids made a tie blanket and the younger ones just had to slip a piece of fringe through a slit and pull. Everything was precut and even the littlest kids were able to do it.

I usually try to limit pictures of other people's kids but we are sending this one to the Friend magazine, and I wanted to show you what the kids made.

Part Four: I know that my Savior Loves Me

I found these cute picture frames on Clearance at Oriental Trading. I got 60 for $19.95. They are nice and big so even the little kids could easily put one together. Andra made templates for hair and clothing and cut boat loads of foam for the kids to use in their decorating. I think they came out so cute and I hope the kids went home and put pictures in them. These were to remind them that Jesus loves every one of us individually.

Now I'll go back to leaving other people's kids off my blog, but here are my two Primary kids. I am going to put the pics of the rest of the kids on a poster board to display at church. We are hoping that will encourage more people to come next time?

Some of the other kids' work. Excuse the folks eating cupcakes in the background.

Rewind to Part Two: I will follow faithfully
We sent the kids on a treasure hunt around the church. By following the clues faithfully they were able to find their treasure...cupcakes! 60 cupcakes that took 4 hours to make and decorate and only 26 kids who showed up to eat them. Oh well, that means everyone got two. Hooray! But I do get bummed out that we can't even get 50% of our kids to these activities.

And just as side note that I got excited about. I was wondering how on earth I would get 60 cupcakes safely to the church. I thought about buying them in the plastic containers at Walmart but they would have been $35 for 60. Our budget for the whole activity is $50 and I was already over budget. I knew that making the cupcakes would save lots of money. I asked the guy at the Walmart bakery if I could have 5, one dozen cupcake containers and he consented. I have asked for pizza boxes in the past, and Burger King crowns. Keep your eyes peeled, you never know what people will give you for free.

We had so much fun, or at least I did. We came home and Alyssa made a frame for Chloe, who was carrying around a blank one like a baby doll. She also made one for her doll, Victoria. My kids are begging me to go to Hobby Lobby to get more fleece so they can make blankets for themselves as well. At least two kids enjoyed themselves, so I will count the activity as a success.

Now Chloe carries hers around and even tries to sleep with it. Why, you wonder, is she wearing a coat in the house? Because I wear a coat in the house ALL WINTER LONG, unless I am cleaning. If I am not moving I am always cold in the winter, even with the thermostat at 72. I think my blood is frozen. I have even been known to climb in to bed for a Sunday afternoon nap in my coat. It drives Seth nuts and now his girls are doing the same thing. Did you notice Alyssa wearing a coat throughout the Primary activity?

Now to start on the one for May, which is actually almost completely prepared in my mind already. I am playing off of the only activity that I remember from Primary as a child and I have been tweaking it in my mind for 25 years. I can't wait to finally bring it to life.